Channel 50 in Kansas City first signed on the air on October 29, 1969 as KCIT-TV. Founded by Allied Broadcasting, it was the first independent station to sign on in the Kansas City market and the first new commercial station to sign on in the area since the short-lived DuMont Television Network affiliate KCTY debuted in 1954. KCIT filled its schedule mostly with programming that the network affiliates in the market – KCMO-TV, KMBC-TV and WDAF-TV – had chosen to turn down. However, in some cases, the network affiliates turned down so many shows that even KCIT could not air them all. Among the notable pre-empted network shows that it carried included The Brady Bunch, Days of Our Lives, the ABC Evening News, Meet the Press, The Merv Griffin Show and American Bandstand. It also managed to produce a few local programs. One of them was Torey and Friends, hosted by popular children's host Torey Southwick. Landing Southwick was a major coup for the station, as he had been hosting local programs on KMBC-TV since 1960. However, KCIT received competition in August 1970, when KBMA-TV began broadcasting. KBMA had wealthier owners and a stronger signal than channel 50; KCIT lost its early appeal as a result. Around this time, Allied Broadcasting had gotten into severe financial straits. By late June, the station had bumped its sign-on time to 2:30 p.m. By the end of the month, the station had finally decided to call it quits. During the last week in June and the first week of July, it was only on the air for two hours a day – the minimum required by the Federal Communications Commission to cover the license. The first iteration of channel 50 signed off for good on July 7, 1971. KBMA became the sole independent station in Kansas City for several years afterward until KEKR-TV signed on in September 1983.
Relaunch
The channel 50 allocation remained dormant for several years. On July 2, 1976, Kansas City Youth for Christ, Inc., filed for a construction permit for a new channel 50 TV station, which was granted by the FCC on April 29, 1977. The new station signed on December 17, 1978 as KYFC, named after its owner. Operating as a noncommercial independent station, its lineup largely consisted of religious programming through the 1980s, however a few "family-friendly" secular shows had been added to its schedule. The station ran newscasts from CNN Headline News at least once a day for several years, replacing the commercials during breaks within the simulcasts with other announcements. Pledges to support the station declined during the 1990s. Station managers also grew concerned about the cost of converting to digital operations, something they were reluctant to pass on to their financial supporters. In 1997, the station was sold to Paxson Communications, and began to air infomercials from the Infomall TV Network and programming from The Worship Network shortly thereafter, along with some religious programs. On April 28 of that year, the station also changed its call letters to KINB. On January 13, 1998, the station changed its callsign again, this time to KPXE; then eight months later on August 31, the station became a charter owned-and-operated station of Pax TV when that network launched. In 2001, KPXE entered into a joint sales agreement with NBC affiliate KSHB, as part of an agreement between Paxson Communications and three stations owned by the E. W. Scripps Company.
Digital television
Prior to January 31, 2010, KPXE offered The Worship Network on digital subchannel 50.4. KPXE began broadcasting its main 50.1 channel in high definition in late spring 2010.
Analog-to-digital conversion
KPXE-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 50, on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 51. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former UHF analog channel 50. In early 2015, KPXE was granted a construction permit by the FCC to move their signal to channel 30, as the FCC is selling off the high UHF spectrum for wireless communications. Viewers will still see channel 50 on their televisions via PSIP. The move to channel 30 took place in the early morning hours of May 30, 2015, with the FCC issuing the license to operate on channel 30 on July 6, 2015.
Newscasts
In September 2001, as part of its joint sales agreement with that station, KPXE-TV began airing tape delayed rebroadcasts of KSHB-TV's 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts each Monday through Friday evening at 6:30 and 10:30 p.m.. The news rebroadcasts ended on June 30, 2005, when the network's other news share agreements with major network affiliates throughout the United States were terminated upon the network's rebranding as i: Independent Television, as a result of the network's financial troubles.
